Beijing, July 29, 2021 – He “caused problems” and thus received a sentence a 18 years in a Chinese prison. Not quite a Grand Hotel. If Tarantino’s Mr Wolf solved the problems, Sun Dawu, one of the richer agricultural tycoons from the China, created them in power, and this is frowned upon in the People’s Republic. Defended the rights of rural entrepreneurs and the freedom to express dissent and his story remained virtually hidden until, yesterday, a court in the province of Beijing, Gaobeidian, found him guilty of crimes such as “gathering a crowd to attack state organs”, “obstructing the ‘government administration “and”welcome protests and cause problems“, an umbrella term often used against dissidents.
The whole story of Sun Dawu remained secret, starting from the arrest on November 11 last November – carried out in his company with that of some relatives and partners, in total more than twenty people, including his wife, two children and the sister-in-law – until the opening of the trial, celebrated behind closed doors. L’arrest of the billionaire happened after his company – the Dawu Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Group with $ 2 billion in revenue and nine thousand employees – it was involved in a land dispute with a state-owned competitor.
The charismatic Sun has built one of the largest private farms in China. In the 1980s he and his wife had left to own some chicken and some pigs, coming to create a real empire. But even getting rich hadn’t taken away his desire to fight for rural reforms; a strong confrontation with the government was also when he tried to make the authorities understand how devastating theswine fever epidemic In the 2019, posting photos of dead pigs online after finding local officials very slow to respond to the disease.
The hearing began on Thursday at the Gaobeidian People’s Court in the northern province of Hebei; his lawyers said in a statement that the secrecy of the process “violated the legal guidelines and did not protect the rights of the accused“. In 2003, Sun was sentenced to prison for”illegal fundraising“, but the measure in this case was canceled after a massive demonstration of support from human rights defenders and the people of his province.
In addition to the prison, the court ordered one fine of 3.11 million yuan ($ 475,000). “When the government violates its own laws to silence those who have the means to uphold commitments to social justice and official accountability, it profoundly weakens the vitality of the Chinese economy and the promises of its leaders to rule by law,” he has declared Ramona Li representing Chinese Human Rights Defenders, who tried to completely oppose the initiation of the trial of Sun Dawu.
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